Well, I didn’t expect to write this post. I thought I was overrating Christian Yelich when I ranked the top 20 outfielders. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect others to be so much more excited about him. By the way, my wildest dreams include Giancarlo, marmalade and a goat wearing pants. In my dream journal, I call that dream, “Ecstasy: My Bleating Heart.” A schmohawk is so extreme, and I don’t like doing schmohawk posts for guys that are young, and Yelich is younger looking than Neil Patrick Harris when he played Doogie. Yelich should be peaking, but, Hayzeus Cristo, Yahoo and ESPN have Yelich ranked crazy-pants-high. I had a friend who sniffed glue, we called him Elmer, and, after a solid glue-in-nose sesh, he still made more sense than where these people have ranked Yelich. Anyway, why is Christian Yelich overrated for 2017 fantasy baseball?
I feel like I need to at least mention what I wrote previously so we’re on the same page, “(Yelich) holds the new modern record for the most home runs with the lowest fly ball rate (since 2000). You don’t need a pocket protector and solar calculator to figure this out. If a guy doesn’t hit fly balls, he’s not going to hit home runs. Pretty straight forward. Only one player ever (since 2000, but ‘ever’ sounds better, and it was easier for me to research) hit 15 homers with a fly ball rate at 20% or lower — Cap’n Jetes. Jeter and Yelich actually profile pretty closely. Lots of ground balls, no fly balls, both like their girls in their teens, only Yelich is a teenager so it’s understandable.” And that’s me quoting me! You cannot hit ground balls at the rate Yelich hits them and hit home runs. I get the sense that everyone knows this. Steamer has him projected for 16 homers in 143 games. ZiPS projects him for 15 homers in 638 PAs. That’s more PAs than James Cameron had on Avatar! I projected him for 15 homers. Sure, home runs aren’t everything, but you can not expect to get 21 home runs again, unless he completely changes his approach, and, if he does change his approach, other aspects of his game will change, and maybe not for the better. Last year, he had nine steals. Um, okay, cool. His Speed Score was 3.9, which was the 68th worst in the majors, tied with Nolan Arenado, Justin Turner and Chase Utley. Speed demons, they are not. To get those nine steals, he was caught four times. Does this sound like a guy that’s going to steal 25 bases? I projected him for 17, and I was likely being too generous. Steamer and ZiPS have him for 12 and 15. So, safe 15/15 guy who ESPN and Yahoo have ranked in the top 35 overall. Hmm, doode better hit .330 to justify that. And that is where Yelich does bring some real promise. He’s a .295-.310 hitter, which does seem legitimate like the gripe I have with pickle jars. Who can open these things?! While JB is visiting me in LA (and he is visiting until Wednesday), I need him to open all of my jars and get everything down from high shelves to rest them on the kitchen counter. “I have cereal up there from 2011?” So, does a 15/15/.300 hitter sound familiar? It should, I mentioned earlier who his statelganger is, Jeter. Only Jeter (and I can’t believe I’m talking this much about Jeter either) never approached Yelich’s 20.9% strikeout percentage and Jeter had serious steals when he was younger — 32 SBs and only 3 times caught one year; 24 steals, 5 times caught another. Yelich gets caught that many times stealing nine bags! I just can’t figure out where the early third round value is that these other sites are talking about for Yelich. He’s 20/17/.310 in the absolute best, and most unlikely case scenario! I mean, c’mon. Oh, fun fact! In Jamaica, they pronounce c’mon as ‘see mon.’
